Petition for Indiblogger

By your powers combined I am Captain Awesome!Captain Awesome, he's our hero,Gonna take spam down to zero,He's our powers magnified,And he's fighting on the forum sideCaptain Planet, he's our hero,Gonna take awesome down to zero,Gonna help him put to shame,Bad guys who like to spam and flame"You'll pay for this Captain Awesome!"(chanting)We're the Indi Police,You can be one too!'Cause saving our forum is the thing to do,Spamming and flaming is not the way,Hear what Captain Awesome has to say:"THE POWER IS YOURS!!"

By your powers combined I am Captain Awesome!

Captain Awesome, he's our hero,

Gonna take spam down to zero,

He's our powers magnified,

And he's fighting on the bloggers side

Captain Planet, he's our hero,

Gonna take spam down to zero,

Gonna help him put to shame,

Bad guys who like to spam and flame

"You'll pay for this Captain Awesome!"(chanting)

We're the Indi Police,You can be one too!'

Cause saving our forum is the thing to do,

Spamming and flaming is not the way,

Hear what Captain Awesome has to say:

"THE POWER IS YOURS!!"

By your powers combined I am Captain Awesome!

Captain Awesome, he's our hero,

Gonna take spam down to zero,

He's our powers magnified,

And he's fighting on the bloggers side

Captain Awesome, he's our hero,

Gonna take spam down to zero,

Gonna help him put to shame,

Bad guys who like to spam and flame

"You'll pay for this Captain Awesome!"(chanting)

We're the Indi Police,You can be one too!'

Cause saving our forum is the thing to do,

Spamming and flaming is not the way,

Hear what Captain Awesome has to say:

"THE POWER IS YOURS!!"

Posted it a third time because first time formatting went wrong and second time typo occured. Not able to delete or edit.

lol awesome TF JHI 

+1 

awesome TF! maybe we should add a tune to it too!! :D

@Kirti - This already has a tune. This is the captain planet theme song. I have just modified the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0D6bzxLLw

OHO!! captain planet ka theme song!!!!

Good going TF

Awesome one TF JHI

In my opinion strictly, a normal new person who joins IndiBlogger takes it as just another forum and thus spams with the ideolgy, 'Oh what am I gonna loose? they'll ban me. i don't give a damn' Happened with me as well. I mean I thought this was just another forum. But since I have been here for some time I understand how different it is. What can be done is there should be a column where people should see the success stories of IndiBlogger. I mean where regular members themselves can write how IndiBlogger has helped them to gain great readers and ofcourse traffic. And its not that tough. I mean people have actually gained readership because of IndiBlogger. So when a newbie will come, he'll redirected to that page and he'll see those and feel like 'okay this is different, this actually works.' 

There already is a thread for this. I will share the link shortly. 

There is a testimonial section on the bottom of the site where you can read all such stories.

and regarding the contest thing, imo again, since that is a contest thing, there can be an approval method. One's post wont be displayed until the Mods approve it. jsut for the contest.

I don't think that is humanly possible right now for Indiblogger

No preliminary screening can be done to prevent such posts to be made it would be a lot like SOPA and Indian Govt. attempted strategies where every post/image/content uploaded should be manually examined for approval prior to it being displayed on a public website.

IndiBlogger does check out the blogs before acceptance but that doesn't say anything about the character of the blogger. So, I think, the best way is have filter out/block spammers as and when they appear.

It is encouraging to see that only a handful of people are actually spamming on the IndiForum from the thousands that are regularly active here. It shouldn't be too hard to weed out the few trouble makers around.

Right Shashank, this is the point I also wanted to make. People who are doing this should be punished in a stricter way.

For the point 1, a new blogger receives an invitation mail from IB suggesting to read the FAQs and all. Then if someone wants to mature into an IB'er one learns and abides too....

For point 2, Cptn I've been 'Reporting' about such posts that are no way related with the Contest since a long time. But, I seriously don't know what happens to them. I suggest that 'Reporting' thing should be tricked to automatically remove that blog and notifiy the blogger after a number of designated hits...

Even I have been reporting such posts, not sure what actions are taken and that is where I have raised the question. There has to be a clear policy against spammers and IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN BOLDS.

As far as FAQs are concerned, I don't expect people to read them. How many times do we read when we register a new email ID and a mail is sent by the service providers? 

Shy! I read those FAQs esp while joining Forums. Probably coz have been rejected thrice on TeamBHP :'(

But, yes a Clear and Bold policy is indeed a need for any good forum, again taking example of TeamBHP...

Adding to Shashank and Punit... one thing that can be done for a new indiblogger is- when he/she clicks any of the links related to forum for the first time a pop up window should hit the screen mentioning the rules of the forum such as:

1. Not to spam using links for their own blogs on forum.
2. As mentioned by Punit- after so many reports of breaking the rules the blog would be deleted from the directory.
3. And so on.

For already existing members an official indimail should sent mentioning the new rules. And the rules should also be displayed on all the links of forum all the time.

I find quite some place for rules window below the inditalk!

Medha, its not a new rule. Its a rule there since beginning. And question is also not about new members. It is understood that people would not know rules right from the day one and we should not expect them to read FAQs also. None of us does so on any of the forums or sites. Moreover, any new IndiMember understands it when he/she is told about it (mostly).

The issue is for

1. Those people who keep on spamming even after repeatedly being told not to do so. Yesterday itself, one such person used abusive language to one of the fellow IndiMembers when he was asked no to involve in shameless self-promotions. MOreover, he edited the topic and reason was given as F*** all!  (I have masked the word myself as its a public forum. You can easily understand what the actual word was which he used!)
2. And for thoe who deliberatley submit non-relevant posts to contests.

According to me, the idea of a pop up is not something that is going to work and rather, it would be something that would surely downgrade the quality of the site. Pop ups, especially in the form of message dialogs are one of the most annoying things on the web and they have failed to attract the attention of web users. Just think about yourself: How many times have you read the contents of a pop up window or a message dialog....

Ranjith, not sure about others, but I read.

(1) I think, there should be a edit/delete button. I am not saying all those who spammed were innocents,

but there may be newbies who wanted to post under general indivine but  ended up posting in a contest thread. I myself wanted to delete a redundant word but could not do so. 

in this thread too, TF could not delete the post.  Edit facility should be available for at least 1 hour from the time of posting.

(2)before accepting an entry for any indivine contest , a message should pop up- " are u sure you are participating in ******** contest ? "

Cool... Just while I was typing after my first post on this thread, Avadhoot's post is on the same suggestion...

Sorry I cannot delete mine now!

Megha,That fortified the point.

Totally agree with this. \

There is a reason why edit/delete is not provided for thread replies. Simply because someone would have replied to you and if you edit it after that, replies become irrelevant. But, giving it for a limited period after reply has been posted is surely a good idea.

And yes, it is possible that someone might have posted it by mistake and a pop-up would be helpful for such people. But as I said earlier too, there would be a people who would go ahead, click Yes on the pop-up and spam the place. A policy is required to deal with those people

I think, instead of giving the edit option for a limited time, it's better to give that only to the moderators. That way, they can surely control the spammers. Also, for our typo's they can surely delete it. 

This is for indiblogger/Renei.

Please allow us to edit our posts on forum!

Sometimes unknowingly or due to confusion we may post something related to different thread on another thread.

Allowing us to edit or delete our own posts would be helful.

Agree with this demand partially. It shoud be allowed for a limited period after one has posted the reply. I have already given the reason for this as a reply to Avadhoot

For limited time, there has been times when I discover my mistake after days! 

Or I think, everyone should be able to edit it, and after the edit is done, there should be a option somewhere below which would display the previous version of edits.

For eg: at first I typed --> "Hi IndiBlogers "

now, the spelling is obviously incorrect, and so, after I make the edit it should show like:-

Hi IndiBloggers!

                                                                                  Edited : View previous versions

And yeah, the reason of edit, should be asked. This way, those who want to edit, can edit, and at the same time this would avoid those who wanted to change their opinion, cause now it won't really matter.

Why I am not in foavor of having a permanent edit button, I have already clarified. Now even if we go according to your advice, imagine the scenario when soneone edits his reply 10 times.

Yeah, but people won't change their opinion (and that means, nothing would get irrelevant), cause they know what they have told is already there!

Tagging Indi team

Yupp too irrogant!!!!

Oops posted at wrong place and yes, it was arrogant

I think some sort of punishment is required to actually stop this.

For abusing the forums: Straight away ban from here. Because this is totally unacceptable, and there is no chance that the culprit can go with the excuse that "they didn't knew the rules", cause this is basic mannars!

For spamming: I think on every attempt of spamming, a serious e-mail should be sent to the spammer, and after like 3 or 5 such incidents and warnings, he/she should be banned! 

Till now, we didn't had any definate rules against spamming, and hence it is continuing. Kudos to you for taking up such a topic! 

I am surprised to find the second thing that you mentioned here Ani... this is real shame on those who attempted to do this. 

I am sure you cannot automate this process as we dont have intelligent systems that detect content in the contest. But a penality should be mandatory.

I suggest we should "List down all those bloggers who have submitted wrong content in IndiVine for Contests" in the hope of getting links. Hope this would stop people from doing this again.

Hemal, there is a reason why I started a thread here. Things happened in series yesterday. First I discovered how someone thrashed a Fellow IndiMember while he was requested to put down his URLs from the topic he had created and then he showed his middle finger to all IndiMembers. While I was yet to recover from this, I started seeing these spam links in the Lakme contest. Believe me, I am boiling with anger and I stroingly demand for strictest action and policy in place.

I am sure you are my friend. Where is that thread which you are talking about?

That thread is deleted. But I have written an artcile with all screenshots on my blog. You can see it there.

this was as bad! recollected things that happened in the past too, but this was way too offensive.

That was Gross! Few days back only I came across the old story of another Intellectual (!) Blogger and now this... I jus wonder how can someone call oneself an artist (writer) if one's so badmouth.. Don't even want to know who that SuperMan was...

I copy Capt.,  I stroingly demand for strictest action and policy in place.

Ya Hemal and Punit. Unfortunately, if Hemant was in lead role in that intellectual incident, I was assisting him in side role.

And FYI, that intellectual has become a thatre artist now and shiftd to Mumbai, Am sure for trying to get a role in TV/Films

Capt., I was his FB frn and was bored of FB-samming when got to know all that and 'un'friended someone for the first time on FB 

I'm personally aware of the first point that you mention, having been directly in the firing line of that. There are fewer of this type in the forum I think, but best to cut at the root before it becomes contagious. I'm not a mod, but I do try and tell the person if I find that self promotion spam involved.

Not aware of the second one, since I don't usually take part in contests. Am yet to in fact, but I agree with the point that if not part of the contest, I think it should go. I don't know if Indi has a moderation system in place for contests, but rather than killing the links to incompetent posts at the end of the contest, I feel it can be done when the post is linked. Sadly, I see the workaround for the moderation system of this essence too.

I have seen Renie's presence on the forum today, and wondering why he hasn't shared his thoughts...

Totally agree with you. And Renie will respond, aaj nahi to kal.

We just need to keep shouting till the time he does not

Have a sore throat, but will crumple pieces of virtual paper and throw at Renie... 

pls pls pls do so

I sign the petition....

Agree, but you want traffic using unethical means? 

And putting "how to prevent windows pop-ups" in Lakme, isn't it spam?

Sorry, it was for Jayan

I do not sign the petition. You know why Lakme makes contest. That's business. They need more traffic(aka sales). So there is nothing wrong in I too making some traffic. I have not submitted a post yet but I do not guarantee you that I will not. Business should benefit both me and Lakme. Shouldn't it?

But I'm against spamming in forums.

You submitting a valid entry is not what the petition says, Jaya. The entries to Lakme is closed, that notwithstanding, the contest was of the Lakme girl, Kyra and her promoting of the sunscreen. What some of the entries were having is not related to Lakme or the contest at all.. if the contest was about a topic X, the supposed contest entry was about an unrelated topic Y, purely for traffic to the site of the other topic Y. That's what the thing says.

If Lakme organise a contest, I do not demand that they should not compel us to write about lakme and instead ask us to write about a general topic. But if they demad us to write about their product, there is nothing wrong in using the thread for promotion of our blog. I know it is bad but is there so much ethics in business?  We bloggers, they Lakme, we both do business in contest.

Jaya, especially to the Point 2 - have your never felt disappointed when you click on a post tagged with Photography and land on an Economical Crisis blog? I feel cheated and if can remember that person, would try never again visit his/her blog. So, this mis-leading thing to get traffic would finally be leading to no-or-less traffic, don't you agree?

I do agree. That's cheating ofcourse. But when you click on a thread like Lakme contest, you should be beware that it is designed primarily for Lakme itself(not just the thread but each and every post added to it) and there would be smart fellows who make the most out of it. You can not participate decently in the contest. Either you must promote Lakme for nothing in return or use Lakme for your benefit. Or you just don't participate at all.

Agree, but you want traffic using unethical means? 

And putting "how to prevent windows pop-ups" in Lakme, isn't it spam?

And when Lakme asked for it, they asked openly. Is there anything hidden there? Then why to use these tactics? Most important, by doing this, you do not gain any traffic because the moment people see such entries, they close the site or do not open them at all. Secondly, it is not that you are doing something (wrong or right) with Lakme. They don't care, they are not impacted. You are doing it with your own community and readers.

I have already said its unethical. That's why i didn't submit any entries. But is it ethical to ask us to promote a product without paying us? That's why I said so.

Contests are optional only. People can say "no" rather than scam and spam I feel.

A contest should be based on an open topic. If it is not so, it is not ethical. So all my point is advertaising our blog on the forum threads is worst. compared to it, adding a wrong entry into the contest is just bad.

They are paying for it. What are prizes otherwise? If they remove prizes and pay everyon who participate, colletive cost would not be more than what they spend on prizes anyway

I do not understand the thrust of your argument. When Lakme announces a contest you know clearly what they are looking for when you decide whether or not to participate. When you put up a post promoting your blog without anything to do with the contest when I am looking for a related entry, you are cheating outright - like labelling a box a Macbook and selling me a brick instead. Your argument seems specious to me. Also, if you think Lakme is cheating you, take it up with Lakme. Do not cheat the readers on Indiblogger.

You know how much they pay for prices. you know what lakme gives us as prices. That's too little compared to the cost if they pay all of us even at different rates. @ suresh. It is cheating definitely. But I take it only as a fun. I'll tell you why. suppose you got no price. then for what did you promote lake?

I will tell you why and I have clarified it on another thread too. I seldom take part in contests, this time I did. I came out with a post which is not my style. I liked it, I got traffic too due to that post.

I have never found that argument appealing that since someone cheated me it is ok for me to cheat others. If I did promote lakme I did it knowing full well that they were not going to pay me for it unless I won. If I enter a transaction knowing all the details it is a free choice made by me and the sponsor does not become a cheat merely because I don't win a prize. So, in your case, you are justifying spamming the contests merely because you want to cheat and will use any reason to justify your doing so.

I somehow feel this particular thread is getting more about convincing Jaya (sorry Jaya), and at same time it's good that he's got his own firm opinion.

Agreeing to what Suresh ji just posted, nobody claimed too treat every participant. And, going by that it seems who ever wins watsover in any compettion is because someone else has been 'cheated' for him. Most of us enter a Contest, because we want to do something new in domain of writing and blogging, and to some extent also get more traffic and follower and yess to Win too; only after agreeing to the condition that amongst the 150-200+ valid entries only a few will be rewarded. Comparing it back, we appear in Entrance exams only to be a few selected amongst a thousand appeared. So, where is Cheating? But, Certainly Cheating is when we appear in an exam just to get passing marks to get married with big Dowry :P i.e. get just traffic by hook-n-crook watever may be the theme is...

Since I'm not able to convay what I intend to hidden in my comments, I say it open. Assume that I arrange a contest. On the first hand, I ask you to write about  "Effective blogging". And I reward the best entries. On the seccond hand, I ask you to write "Effective blogging by citing my blog as example". Lakme contest comes under the second category. And it is bad to write something without promoting my blog in that contest. But if you do so, it is not a big cheating. Its just a lie. You read a post to know how he has promoted my blog. Instead you see something else. Is that a big cheating????? I once again agree to  you all that promoting our blogs in the forums is worst.

Simple Jayan, don't participate.

citing my blog an example is a condition and writing and subitting why America is a the biggest enemy of world peace is cheating

Yes captain. I do not participate. Now an open question. Will you promote my blog on your blog? I'll give you a T-shirt. I think it will be an insult to you if I say so. So is it if it is said by Lakme also.

No Jayan, I would not do it for you, simply because T-shirt is not a big price. Lakme did not ask me to promote them directly, they gave me a topic to write on which was quite chalening and I loved to write on it. Moreover, this contest gave me traffic, which, in your case seems doubtful.

OK, let's keep traffic part aside, give me a nice and challenging topic to write on, I'll write on it and put your link on the post, too. I have done it in past. There are two stories on my fiction blog where you'll find links of other blogs.

That's fine Captain. To arrive at a consensus, I put forward an opinion. Any contest should be based on an open topic. Don't you agree? I agree that posting something irrelevant to the topic is unethical.

Here are my suggestions:

Spam

Members on their first log in should be presented with just a few sentences ( and not a long page ) of rules with the background blacked out ( similar to what happens when one clicks the promote button on IndiVine ) This would definitely draw the users attention as such tactics are generally not widespread on the Internet. And this page should stay on for some predetermined time, say 15 to 20 seconds. And then, the user should be allowed to click the next button on which two or three multiple choice questions should be shown related to the rules shown previously. If the member answers them correctly, he should be alowed to proceed otherwise he needs to be shown the rules page again. ( This proposal was put forward earlier by some other member in another thread)

Contests

One suggestion  to intially screen entries is to check if the required URL of the sponsor is present in the post. This can be done by appropriate programming. I am not sure that IB is doing it right now. And, non contest entries submitted under the contest would most probably not have these links. All invalid entries found out during this initial screening should be rejected. And manual screening would anyway take place during evaluation of the entries. All the people who have sumbitted such invalid entries should be included in a list and for the next contest, entries submitted by these people have to be kept under hold until manually approved by a moderator. And  may be people resorting to such practices should not be allowed to participate in the next contest.

Locked threads

Two or three days earlier, a series of threads by some member were locked and all these were present on the main forum page which did destroy the aesthetic nature of the forum. Such threads should either be deleted or better moved into the off topic category.

Editing forum replies

If the IndiTeam considers it to be a difficult and time taking process, one temporary solution would be to put the Spell Check toggle button in ON mode by default, which currently is not the case.

Links in posts

People here have developed a tendency to quickly reply with a message saying that 'Spam is not allowed' whenever they see a link. People do not even bother about seeing what its contents are and tend to forget the fact that linking to useful pages, even if they are on one's own blog, provided they add value to the discussion doesn't amount to spam. With all due respect, I say that all members here need to abstain from such impulsive behavior. And also, no one comes here to simply contribute to the development of IB. The primary motive of all ( except a handful, that definitely doesn't include me  ) is to promote one's blog. While there are various ways to do it in the correct way, a few resort to the easy way of unrelated link dropping.

Permanent ban

As suggested by many, permanent ban isn't the correct way to stop someone from spamming. A forum is a place to learn and doesn't that learning involve learning to stop spamming? Forum posts of such people should be moderated before being shown.

Ranjith, point by point reply below: -

Spam: Agree

Contests: Agree with an addition. There should be more punishment for people found on fault for X number of times apart from banning from contests.

Locked threads: It was done by me. Reason was simple. I wanted people to know about this, at the same time, not wanting confrontation to go in a violent mode.

Editing forum replies: Agree

Links in posts: Competely agree

Links in posts: I think it would be required in few cases. I am not coming from spam perspective. If you have seen those locked threads, you would also have seen the reason why they were locked and people like these should be banned.

I totally agree with you. I remember when I had to go on and on about how one should not Self-Promote. The worst I faced was one guy, who posted his link on every thread possible. But later, when I posted SELF PROMOTION ISN'T ALLOWED everywhere he postedhe apologized and said he wouldn't do it again.

I know whom you are talking about. They not only promoted themselves but also abused many right? My opinion is to BAN them. A warning was given, even then if they can't understand then thats the only way to goand this will also make sure that no one else repeats what they did.

About the second one, I don't know how IndiBlogger can deal with it. Cause the judges have to go through all the post and reading such things would be waste of time for them. Even IndiTeam can't go through each and every post trying to delete all those not necessary before leaving for judging. 

Said it before- will say it again! Shift to Vbulletin! It will become much better and easier to take care of things and organize.

in favor of the petition